Sands of time is a collaborative sound work with Zi Xiao Gong during the art writing workshop led by Dr David Mollin at the London College of Communication.

This collaboration had to get us involved in the use of writing and sound as a process of materialisation of an artwork that fails to materialise, living perpetually within discourse production. 

Sands of time is the junction point between two existing artworks, the Longplayer by Jem Finer and Cymactics by Nigel Stanford. This sonic assemblage proposes an enhanced listening of the deep time where the sound seems to become tangible for the eyes.

Sands of times was broadcast on Resonance FM for the radio program The Sound of Criticism on February 23rd 2021:
https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/the-sound-of-criticism-23-february-2021-3-time-lapse-of-the-stream-of-consciousness/

Sands of time

On October 2021, I was engaged in a sonic correspondence with artists living in Hong Kong and London. We were exchanging listening gems, viewed as a gift to make discover each other's city. By letting these sounds infuse us, the desire to make these metropolises resonate together manifested itself through a series of compositions where these two spaces seem to intertwine.  

These chimerical arrangements were exhibited in the virtual gallery Sound Enveloppe which is part of the SPARK Festival 2021 (British Council | Hong Kong).

My sound composition in this corpus is entitled Sillage (Wake). I had the pleasure of hybridizing my London field recordings with those from Lina Simon who is based in Hong Kong. 
I hope you enjoy the wetness (I promise it won't splash for real).

More about Sound Envelope project:
The project is a sound-based artistic collaboration between students from City University of Hong Kong and Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London. Led by Ryo Ikeshiro (SoundLab, School of Creative Media) and Tom Tlalim (Centre for Creative Research, Wimbledon College of Arts), the artists use field recordings and listening as a framework for encouraging dialogue and cultural exchange between those living in Hong Kong and London – places that are geographically remote but nevertheless share a long history. The act of listening attentively whilst recording, playing back and mixing field recordings can make one attuned to subtle variations in our everyday sound environment, and help us become receptive to those of others. The immersive experience provided by spatial audio augments the possibility of putting oneself in another’s shoes (or ears).

Sillage

The Oceanomicon is a cartographic artefact which emerges from the corrosive wake of the Carbon Gas in the One Ocean. This large-scale object made with fabric and cyanotype is more than a mere world map that one can only appreciate by sight; it is a sensory cartography of knowledge and affect, operating on the edge of human perception. From the folds of this liminal atlas, a conductive wiring harness and a bundle of audio devices are interfaced between the fabric’s membrane and the antenna of two theremins, creating an infra-sensible channel of amplification.

By touching the blue of the map with the tip of your fingers, find the porosity between the terrestrial and the oceanic life. If you channel the ether waves of the theremins in you, an environmental murmur will be unveiled by the ebb and flow: the intimate sound of the seawater in your veins under the increasing acidification.

Audio Excerpt Oceanomicon evolving soundscape

Layers of internal sounds of trees made with a contact microphone custom-designed by Marcus Maeder.

Inner Wood

Want to support my work? 
https://mathiasarrignon.bandcamp.com/album/to-the-hum-of-the-forest

On the threshold of pastoral pulsations, pilgrim legends and aerial contrails of the Swiss army, a sycamore tree stands peacefully on the edge of the Heiligkreuz forest, nestled in the mountainous regions of the Lucerne canton. Like a living monument, it is shrouded in vegetal memories where the deep time is infused in the narrative, gradually unfolding a sensitive reading of the environment in its most intimate geological strata. In spite of its rootedness, the tree suggests a motion to its audience, a walk which would allow to feel more closely the liminality of the woods, as if the sensation of an ineffable reality would become almost tangible.

To the hum of the forest is a sound piece produced during the artist's participation in the Anthropos Ex residency program in May 2022, in the UNESCO biosphere of the Entlebuch (CH). Using field recordings and internal sounds of trees made with contact microphones (custom-designed by Marcus Maeder), the composer blends this forestry layer with his feeling of the site by intertwining elements of sonic diarism and light inflections of electronic instruments.

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Mathias Arrignon.

To the hum of the forest

Bee-ing at home is a site-specific installation created in collaboration with  Fulya Uçanok and Anushka Meenak during the workshop “Thinking with the ears” led by sound artists Sam Auinger and Katrinem. Functioning as a magnifying sonic lens, the audience was invited to sit comfortably and wear headphones for a close listen to a beehive nested in a tree facing their seat. By compressing the distance between the bees and the public with two lavalier microphones, this minimalist audio installation aimed to stimulate people’s awareness about a complex pocket of life in their surroundings.

August 2022, Bee-ing at home was exhibited at Wüsten-Buccholz (DE), part of “Voice as Object, Object (h)as Voice”, a series of public events organised by Field Kichen Academy and curated by Ece Pazarbasi.

Bee-ing at home

This piece, featuring two wireless speakers repositioned several times all around the venue by the artist, immerses visitors in an internal dialogue, reflecting the intricate and often fragmented experience of navigating dual heritage. One speaker broadcasts a voice in French, while the other echoes the same voice in Mandarin. This voice is twofold, weaving an inner dialogue where languages attempt to grasp the complexity of living as a mixed-heritage individual. Sometimes attuned, sometimes interwoven, and at other times dissonant, these two linguistic selves are mirroring the rigidity of the notions of race, half construction and identity. Beyond the failure of words, the voice is constantly recalibrating itself and listening to its fragmented melody, constantly searching for an in-between space to call home.

entre-deux ≬ 介于两者之间 (audio demo)

March 19th 2020 8:00pm | Fresnes, France

The first lockdown has been a challenging time that will continue to question myself about the relationship that one can create between a living space and oneself. During these two long months, I returned to live in my mother's flat in the Clos de la Garenne residence in Fresnes, in France. She has lived there since 2014, while I left in 2016 at the end of my studies. 

Before that I had very little affection for this huge complex of 900 flats. The continuous rumour of the surrounding motorways combined with a residential life that was far too peaceful made the landscape dull and cold for me. However, it was this same space that allowed me to maintain a healthy mental state to face this drastic daily routine of restricted movement, the forced distancing from most of my loved ones and the incessant and anxiety-provoking buzz of the media. 

As life and the world seemed to become motionless, on the evening of 18th March at 8pm, I could hear the first applause of a very long series of solidarity demonstration covering this whole period. These clamours were a symbol of gratitude for the medical staff and all the essential workers. It was magnificent, it was swarming with life and energy! I was moved by the richness of the sounds that emanated from all this cheering: shouts, cheers, sets of dishes converted into percussion instruments, vuvuzelas and horns. For the next few days, I placed my sound equipment on the edge of my bedroom window so that I would be ready to capture the next standing ovations. 

I never thought that one day, I would record so many suspended moments in the heart of Fresnes, in this familiar space that I had long neglected of any interest. 

Although gruelling, the experience of confinement will also leave me with nostalgic memories of that period, when there was enough time to listen to life flowing from thousands of windows and a dozen alleys in a residential neighbourhood.

Apr. 2021, Thunder of Applauses won the award of the Disappearing Sound at the Sound of the Year Award 2020 granted by the British Library and the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Thunder of Applauses

• Sound piece based on Emile Verhaeren's poem Plus loin que les gares, le soir (Further than the stations, the evening).

• Synaesthetic illustration made by Lada Zimina

• Original text (French):

PLUS LOIN QUE LES GARES, LE SOIR

L'ombre s'installe, avec brutalité ;
Mais les ciseaux de la lumière,
Au long des quais, coupent l'obscurité,
A coups menus, de réverbère en réverbère.

La gare immense et ses vitraux larges et droits
Brillent, comme une châsse, en la nuit sourde,
Tandis que des voiles de suie et d'ombre lourde
Choient sur les murs trapus et les hautains beffrois.

Et le lent défilé des trains funèbres
Commence, avec leurs bruits de gonds
Et l'entrechoquement brutal de leurs wagons,
Disparaissant - tels des cercueils - vers les ténèbres.

Des cris ! - Et quelquefois de tragiques signaux,
Par-dessus les adieux et les gestes des foules.
Puis un départ, puis un arrêt - et le train roule
Et roule avec des bruits de lime et de marteaux.

La campagne sournoise et la forêt sauvage
L'absorbent tour à tour en leur nocturne effroi ;
Et c'est le mont énorme et le tunnel étroit
Et la mer tout entière, au bout du long voyage.

A l'aube, apparaissent les bricks légers et clairs,
Avec leur charge d'ambre et de minerai rose
Et le vol bigarré des pavillons dans l'air
Et les agrès mentis où des aras se posent.

Et les focs roux et les poupes couleur safran,
Et les câbles tordus et les quilles barbares,
Et les sabords lustrés de cuivre et de guitran
Et les mâts verts et bleus des îles Baléares,

Et les marins venus on ne sait d'où, là-bas,
Par au delà des mers de faste et de victoire,
Avec leurs chants si doux et leurs gestes si las
Et des dragons sculptés sur leur étrave noire.

Tout le rêve debout comme une armée attend :
Et les longs flots du port, pareils à des guirlandes,
Se déroulent, au long des vieux bateaux, partant
Vers quelle ardente et blanche et divine Finlande.

Et tout s'oublie - et les tunnels et les wagons
Et les gares de suie et de charbon couvertes -
Devant l'appel fiévreux et fou des horizons
Et les portes du monde en plein soleil ouvertes.

• English translation:

FURTHER THAN THE STATIONS, THE EVENING

Shadow takes hold, with brutality
but scissors of light,
cut through the darkness, with fube strokes
lamp to lamp, along the platforms.

The huge station and its wide, straight glass
shine, like a shrine, in the muted night,
whilst veils of soot and heavy shadow
fall on stout walls and high bell towers.

And the slow parade of gloomy trains
begins, with the noise of their hinges
and the brutal clash of their carriages
disappearing — like coffins — into the darkness.

Shouts! — and sometimes ill-fated signals,
above the farewells and gestures of the crowd.
Now a departure, now a halt - and the train rolls
and roll with the clamour of files and hammers.

The guileful country and the savage forest
absorb it turn by turn in their nocturnal fright;
and the giant mountain, the narrow tunnel
and a whole ocean, there at the journey's end.

At dawn, brigs appear, light and clear
with their cargo of amber and rosy ore
and multi-coloured flags fluttering in the breeze
and the delicate rigging where macaws perch.

And the reddish jibs and saffron sterns,
the twisted cables and vicious keels,
portholes waxed with copper and bitumen
and the green and blue masts of the Balearic Isles,

and the sailors come from who knows where,
out there, across oceans of splendour and fanfare,
with their songs so soft and gestures so weary
and carved dragons on their black hulls.

The whole dream waits, poised like an army:
and the long waves of the port, like wreathes,
unfurl, alongside ancient vessels, leaving
for Finland, ardent, white and divine.

And all is forgotten — the tunnels and carriages,
the stations covered with soot and coal —
before the wild and febrile summons of horizons
and in full sun the doors of the world stand open.

Mathias Arrignon | 天凯

Popular tracks